Giovanni della Casa (28 June 1503 - 14 November 1556) was an
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
poetA poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and
clericA cleric , clergyman , or churchman is a member of the clergy of a religion, especially one who is a priest, preacher, or other religious professional...
.
He was born in the Mugello district, in
TuscanyTuscany is a region in North-Central Italy. It has an area of and a population of about 3.6 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence.Tuscany is known for its landscapes and its artistic legacy...
. He studied at
BolognaBologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of northern Italy...
,
FlorenceFlorence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence...
and
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
, and by his learning attracted the patronage of Alexander Farnese, who, as
Pope Paul IIIPope Paul III , born Alessandro Farnese, was Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 1534 to his death in 1549. He came to the papal throne in an era following the sack of Rome in 1527 and rife with uncertainties in the Catholic Church following the Reformation...
, made him
nuncioNuncio is an ecclesiastical diplomatic title, derived from the ancient Latin word, Nuntius, meaning "envoy." This article addresses this title as well as derived similar titles, all within the structure of the Roman Catholic Church....
to Florence, where he received the honour of being elected a member of the celebrated academy, and then to
NaplesNaples in Italy, is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples. The city is known for its rich history, art, culture, architecture, music and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,800 years old...
, where his oratorical ability brought him considerable success.
Giovanni della Casa (28 June 1503 - 14 November 1556) was an
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
poetA poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and
clericA cleric , clergyman , or churchman is a member of the clergy of a religion, especially one who is a priest, preacher, or other religious professional...
.
He was born in the Mugello district, in
TuscanyTuscany is a region in North-Central Italy. It has an area of and a population of about 3.6 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence.Tuscany is known for its landscapes and its artistic legacy...
. He studied at
BolognaBologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of northern Italy...
,
FlorenceFlorence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence...
and
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
, and by his learning attracted the patronage of Alexander Farnese, who, as
Pope Paul IIIPope Paul III , born Alessandro Farnese, was Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 1534 to his death in 1549. He came to the papal throne in an era following the sack of Rome in 1527 and rife with uncertainties in the Catholic Church following the Reformation...
, made him
nuncioNuncio is an ecclesiastical diplomatic title, derived from the ancient Latin word, Nuntius, meaning "envoy." This article addresses this title as well as derived similar titles, all within the structure of the Roman Catholic Church....
to Florence, where he received the honour of being elected a member of the celebrated academy, and then to
NaplesNaples in Italy, is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples. The city is known for its rich history, art, culture, architecture, music and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,800 years old...
, where his oratorical ability brought him considerable success. His reward was the archbishopric of Benevento, and it was believed that it was only his openly licentious poem,
Capitoli del forno, and the fact that the French court seemed to desire his elevation, which prevented him from being raised to a still higher dignity. He died in 1556 and is buried in Sant'Andrea della Valle.
Casa is chiefly remarkable as the leader of a reaction in
lyric poetryLyric poetry usually refers nowadays to a short poem that expresses personal feelings. It need not be set to music. Aristotle, in Poetics 1447a, merely mentions lyric poetry along with drama, epic poetry, dancing, painting and other forms of mimesis...
against the universal imitation of
PetrarchFrancesco Petrarca , known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest Renaissance humanists. Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism"...
, and as the originator of a style, which, if less soft and elegant, was more nervous and majestic than that which it replaced.
His prose writings gained great reputation in their own day, and long afterwards, but are disfigured by apparent straining after effect, and by frequent puerility and circumlocution. The principal are in Italian, the famous
Il Galateo (1558), a treatise of manners, which has been translated into several languages, and in Latin,
De officiis, and translations from
ThucydidesThucydides was a Greek historian and author of the History of the Peloponnesian War, which recounts the 5th century B.C. war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 B.C...
,
PlatoPlato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world...
and
AristotleAristotle was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology.Together with Plato and Socrates , Aristotle is one of...
.
Il Galateo was translated into 'Anglo-Latin' by
Nicholas FitzherbertNicholas Fitzherbert was an English recusant gentleman who served as secretary to Cardinal William Allen and was found guilty of treason due to his Catholicism. He was the second son of John Fitzherbert of Padley, Derbyshire...
under the title
Ioannis Casae Galathaeus sive de moribus liber Italicus and first published at Rome in 1595. He is also credited as the first person to use the phrase "ragion di Stato", or "reason of state," in his Oration to Carlo V in 1549.
A complete edition of his works was published at Florence in 1707, to which is prefixed a life by Casotti. The best edition is that of Venice, 1752.